Office - Word, Excel and PowerPoint - will cost users £7.99 per month or
£79.99 per year under Office 365 subscription

Microsoft has finally released Office for iPad, confirming much-rumoured plans. The free Office apps are available to download today, but editing documents requires a subscription.

Chief executive Satya Nadella said that Microsoft was embracing the popular tablet because "a great idea shouldn’t have to wait for you to get back to a particular device".

"We’re bringing Office, the gold standard in getting things done, to the iPad. A billion people rely on Office every day, and we’ve worked diligently to create a version of Word, Excel and PowerPoint that delivers the best productivity experience available on the iPad. It’s built from the ground up for touch, is unmistakably Office in its design, and is optimized for iPad. Office for iPad offers unmatched rendering of content and delivers unparalleled authoring, analysis and presentation experiences that Office customers expect on all of their devices. Download it today for free. We’ve offered Office on the Mac for more than 20 years. Taking the next step and making it available for iPad users too is another way Office delivers on its promise to give anyone the power to make things, and make things happen, any moment of the day."

Microsoft has been under pressure from investors to launch a version of Office for Apple iOS for some time. The company introduced Office Mobile for iPhone in June last year, but an iPad version had so far been unforthcoming.

Analysts estimate that Microsoft sacrifices around $2.5 billion a year in revenue by keeping Office off the iPad, which has now sold almost 200 million units.

Microsoft had previously been thought to be concerned that launching its most popular software product on Apple's mobile operating system could cannibalise sales of Windows.

The company has already signaled that it will adopt a more liberal attitude toward putting its software on different platforms, and previously confirmed that it plans to make OneNote, its note-taking software, available on Mac.